Tag: Bis

Glasgow Venues 6 to 7

In August 2014 I made another trip up the scenic West Coastline to Glasgow to see Mogwai with the usual ‘Mog trio’ of Uncle George, John Dewhurst and I in tow. It was a late arranged sojourn, so I had secured some slightly unusual accommodation as I recall it was linked to a church and located somewhere near Bath Street.

We fancied heading to a couple of different places on this trip but naturally prior to that it had to be music part 1 first, thus our initial port of call was Glasgow 13th Note Cafe. This bar was originally a pub on Glassford Street before moving to its current home on King Street in Merchant City in 1997, the original site has now become Bar Bacchus. The franchise subsequently then hoovered up a bigger club venue on Clyde Street and the 13th Note was then taken over by the Barfly group in 2002.  

13th Note Cafe. Image Credit wee-dundee.co.uk

Many of the local bands of the time, namely Bis and Urusei Yatsura played there, and it was famously the location of one of Mogwai’s very early gigs as detailed in Stuart Braithwaite’s engaging autobiography ‘Spaceships over Glasgow’ which I have recently consumed.  The chap who booked the bands was Alex Huntley who latterly changed his name to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand fame, many of the gigs in the early days were free of charge.

The ground floor is a bar and a thriving vegan café, and the basement room is the music venue with gigs virtually every night. I had heard the local act The Vex were undertaking a Saturday afternoon residence so down we headed into the sweat box. They were a punk/new wave band and playing an epic 2 hour set which in our 30-minute portion we caught an excellent cover version of Cure’s ‘The Forest’, one of my fave tracks of theirs. 

We jumped on the subway at St Enoch’s station for a foray out to the West End of Glasgow where after a sally around the Botanical Gardens we visited the very grand building of Oran Mor for a beer, I have never yet managed to attend a gig there in the music room located upstairs. We then visited the ‘Harry Potter’ style street of Ashton Lane before undertaking the return journey and randomly jumping off at Bridge Street station.

Glasgow Oran Mor. Image Credit Pinterest.

We decamped into the Lauriestown Bar by the river, the Mogwai gig was taking place at Glasgow Richmond Park but when we asked for directions in the pub, we drew blank expressions from the resident punters. We decided to obtain a taxi number and our transport duly arrived. The taxi driver was also lacking in local knowledge and more intent on imparting his current employment woes on us, but we persuaded him to ‘do his job’ and we finally found the park about ten minutes before the show started!

Laurieston Bar. Image Credit tripadvisor.ca

Richmond Park was opened in 1899 and is a huge location of 12 hectares in size, and it appears the area is closed for major investment works at the moment as part of a regeneration programme. The event was part of a two-day shindig called the East End Social Last Big Weekend.

There was a partial marquee where Mogwai took the stage and apologised for drinks availability during the earlier sets, though they stated it had been beyond their control. They were as enjoyable as ever and post gig due to a dearth of taxis we undertook the long walk via Glasgow Green back up to Sauchiehall Street where we ended the evening with ‘one for the ditch’! 

Wickerman Festivals 10 and 11

In 2011, I was astonished to realise that we had reached the 10th anniversary edition of the Wickerman Festival, because there was initial doubt if it would survive past the first event.

There were the usual old timers on that year’s bill including Echo and the Bunnymen, The Damned, Pigeon Detectives, James, King Kurt, and the Coral. There were two enjoyable ska punk bands, Bombskare form Edinburgh and Spunge from Tewkesbury, and we witnessed Department S playing their famous number ‘Is Vic There?’ track released way back in 1980.

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Department S ‘Is Vic There?’ album cover. Image Credit Discogs.

Also in residence were The Hoosiers, The Moonzie Allstars, The Sundancer, Loose Kites, Rock System, The Hostiles, Katy Carr, Modhan, Discopolis and Homework. There was some ear shattering metal from Glasgow’s Desalvo, dreamy indie from French Wives and 60’s infused sounds from the Noisettes.   

Also playing were Endor Gun, Twin Atlantic, Bioorchestra, The Frues, The Capitols and Jack Townes. The highlight that particular year was a very fine engaging set from Feeder.

I recall there was an article in the local paper, the Dumfries and Galloway Gazette at the time asking for ever present attendees over the last decade, we didn’t put our names forward but the four of us must have been part of a very select crew in that particular club.

Other members of that exclusive crew were a trio of lads who we spotted over the years in various tents and in the Kirkcudbright pubs and we begin chatting with them and gleaned that they travelled up from Mansfield and stayed at Olive’s B&B in the town. They usually travelled without tickets and purchased some on arrival however that particular year the festival for the one time only was surprisingly sold out, thus they lost their ever-present attendance.

One of the newer members of our crew approached them and mentioned Mansfield only for us to discover a huge misconception that we had been wrong all these years and they actually derived from Pontefract! However, despite that geographical anomaly they shall always be known to us as the Mansfield boys!

Wickerman 11 had Skerryvore, Bis, Cast, Levellers, The Cats, The Razorbills, Moon Hey, Parrot, Fat Goth and Anderson McGinty Webster Ward and Fisher on the bill. The daddies of Wickerman, Castle Douglas’s pipe band the Dangleberries made an appearance after 5 years away with Dougie and Wee Dougie still in their extensive line up.

The Sharks, a rock band formed by ex-Free bassist in 1972 were playing alongside the punk contingent of Peter and the Test Tube Babies, The Blockheads and Johnny Robb’s Goldblade. The most woeful act was Newton Faulkner with his faux intimacy even employing a dubious prop of a drink’s cabinet on stage. We muttered ‘ye gods’ before shaking our heads and tromping off in disgust up the Wickerman hill, though there were lots of people singing every word, so what do we know!

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Newton Faulkner! Image Credit viagogo.co.uk

Also, in residence were The Lafontaines, United Fruit, Xavia, Kassidy, Andi Neate, The Darcy Da Silva Band, Duncan Maitland, Chris Bradley, Pronghorn, Janice Graham Band, Aaron Wright, The Mirror Trap, Martin John Henry, Chris Devotion & The Expectations, and the always entertaining Bad Manners.

As ever, there was a strong contingent of Scottish bands represented including Texas, Brown Bear and the Bandits from Ayrshire, the brilliantly titled Fridge Magnets from Aberdeen, and the ever-irrepressible View from Dundee. The post burning finale set was provided by the glitzy Scissor Sisters.